Are physicians rational under ambiguity?

Yu Gao (), Zhenxing Huang (), Ning Liu () and Jia Yang ()
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Yu Gao: Peking University
Zhenxing Huang: Shanghai University of Finance and Economics
Ning Liu: Beihang University
Jia Yang: Shanghai University of Finance and Economics

Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 2024, vol. 68, issue 2, No 4, 183-203

Abstract: Abstract Do physicians behave rationally when facing a new disease? This study assesses physicians’ ambiguity attitudes towards the future severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in its early stages and the financial market in the US using an incentive-compatible online experiment. Our findings indicate that physicians demonstrate significant deviations from expected utility, characterized by a modest degree of ambiguity aversion and pronounced levels of likelihood insensitivity. While physicians generally show less insensitivity to uncertainty compared to the general public, both groups exhibited similar levels of irrationality when dealing with the ambiguity surrounding the COVID-19 severity. These results underscore the necessity for debiasing strategies among medical professionals, especially in managing real-world uncertainties, with a specific focus on mitigating likelihood insensitivity.

Keywords: Ambiguity attitudes; Expert decision-making; Rationality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D81 D91 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s11166-023-09425-z

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